


Reaper 76 Week 2018 Shorts

by JoAsakura



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 21:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13444182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: The collected pieces originally for Reaper76 week on tumblr





	1. Day 1: War Buddies

The chopper’s noise was muffled through the thick smoke blanketing Manhattan, and Paz wouldn’t shut the fuck up about his favourite taqueria in Brooklyn. The rest of the team had long since tuned him out, but it was like nails on chalkboard of Gabriel’s soul.

“Listen, listen, if these metal fuckers haven’t wiped it out, holy shit, the carnitas, man.” the guy kept saying. “LISTEN.” 

Gabriel was all for delicious meat products, but if Paz didn’t shut the fuck up, he was going to find his ass dumped out over the remains of the Chrysler Building. He was new. Afraid. He kept talking as if it would make the fear go away.

Gabriel envied him in a way. If nothing else, SEP had ripped the fear out of them by the roots and salted the earth left behind with the memory of their treatments.

Beside him, Jack shifted, cheek pillowed on Gabriel’s shoulder, and he untensed. SEP had planned to spread the survivors of the program out among a number of military units - maximise the reach of the few super soldiers they’d been able to successfully produce. 

“You two, you’re a set, they say. Like, super soldiers, right?” Paz started and Gabriel wished he was back to talking about the fucking tacos again. “I mean, what’s it like, bein’ able to rip an omnic’s head off?”

Gabriel  just glared at him, too damn tired to remind Paz who the superior officers were on this mission, then scratched absently at the barcode on the back of his skull. 

With a sigh, he glanced down at the tousled golden mess resting against him. Jack Morrison, a force of nature with his mad blue eyes and gap-toothed grin, had somehow stood against the inexorable engine of bureaucracy and convinced the powers that be that they needed to remain together. They were  a set.

And too many missions later, Jack was half-snoring on his shoulder as they flew over yet another warzone while Paz babbled at his own panic, and Wilcox turned up his tunes. It almost… ALMOST… felt like they were going into the city for a ballgame and a beer, not to clear killer robots out of NoLIta.

Until the warning alert began to scream and the chopper rocked from an explosion. The craft lurched wildly under the barrage of omnic artillery and for a sickening second, time slowed down as Gabriel surveyed the scene. Paz and Wilcox, shouting, clinging to their seatbelts as the shockwave  slammed against the open cabin. Jack reaching for them. Mason in the cockpit, fighting the stick as she yelled at them to hold on. His own voice, roaring to her to get them on the ground.

Then, the awful snap of his own restraints breaking, before time followed suit and Gabriel found himself tumbling towards the open side, hands scrabbling for purchase on the metal floor, his feet finding nothing but icy air as he slid.

 _Then_.

Jack. 

Mad blue eyes focused on his own, lips curled back in a smile that was more a feral show of teeth, shouting at Mason. One leg hooked in his harness, hand fisting in Gabriel’s hoodie, oblivious to the fact that his sleeve was on fire. 

(I GOT YOU) Jack mouthed, because Gabriel couldn’t hear him over the wind and the noise as their pilot fought the bird down. (LOOK OUT)

And Gabriel let go, trusting Jack to hold him while he unholstered the hand cannon at his side and squeezed off three rounds to where those blue eyes had refocused, the crack of gunfire barely audible. 

But the explosion from the omnic drone that followed was louder than any of it, lighting up the sky behind him and gilding Jack’s wild grin in lurid orange light.

Jack hauled him back in just as the chopper screeched across a skyscraper’s rooftop garden, the two of them curling around each other, hearts pounding until they finally skidded to a stop.

For a moment, Gabriel allowed himself the luxury of pressing his forehead to Jack’s , listening to the other’s wheezy laugh. Then he glanced over to where Paz just stared at them.

“Yeah.” Gabriel croaked. “We’re a set.”


	2. Day 2: They Loved Each Other

_They loved each other._

 

Angela chokes back tears as the UN review board quietly redacts those four words from her testimony after the explosion.

 

_They loved each other._

 

Jesse bitterly turns those words over in his mind as he picks a piece of Talon shrapnel out of his tattered serape, the poorly attended servos in his hand whining like a hurt hound dog.

 

_They loved each other._

 

Ana remembers this over a sip of tea as she watches Jack suck a Cleopatra black down to the filter, crumpled cans of Meister beer surrounding him as he stares up at the wheeling stars with empty eyes.

 

_They loved each other._

 

Moira considers the thought like a dissection, as if four words like fat rats on her table can help her understand the seething, mass of nanomachines and secrets that used to be Gabriel Reyes haunting the halls of her hidden facility.

 

 _They loved each other_.

 

It was the one thing that kept them going, desperate meetings in fragmented radio codes, stolen touches in a firefight, real pain behind false rage.

 

 _They loved each other_.

 

And it was the only thing that would see them through to the end.


	3. Day 3: Thankful

Jack had not moved, blue-armoured hand covering his eyes, for about seven minutes, so Gabriel, who had been standing there for seven minutes and thirteen seconds with two large coffees from the commissary, cleared his throat.

“You’re not a goddamn vampire, Gabe, you can just come in, y’know.” Jack rasped, still without moving. Gabriel hadn’t really noticed before, how much silver raked through the gold of Jack’s hair these days.

“Athena told me you asked her to fake a region-wide power outage so you don’t have to take any calls. Sassy.” Gabe set the coffee down and perched on the edge of Jack’s desk. One wall was nothing but monitors, newsfeeds and mission feeds and half of it worse than the others, all of them with the sound off. He stared out at the Swiss countryside beyond the big windows and sighed while Jack still sat immobile. “…Thank you for doing the right thing. Sending Reinhardt’s team to London. And for bringing McCree a set of blues.”

Jack shifted his hand just enough to fix one eye on Gabriel. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Agent McCree was part of the response team we sent to mitigate the crisis in London.” He said, testing out the words he was going to have to repeat to the Security Council. “As per directive, all Blackwatch operations have been suspended until further notice.” Jack reached for the coffee with his other hand and sighed. “You should have told me he was on-site before I found out the hard way.”

“I know, but it was a tactical dec…”

“You don’t get to throw the word tactical around to justify every dumbass decision you make, Gabe.” Jack finally dropped his other hand, curving both of them around the paper cup. “Like the couch? You said that was tactical too. The word has lost all meaning in regards to you.”

“Point. Look, I was just trying to get some plausible deniability for you. You don’t have to carry this…” Gabriel waved at the monitors. “Alone. Let me and Amari…”

“It’s better if just one of us gets drawn and quartered by the ICJ. If you or Ana get a target on your backs, we lose everything, Gabe.” Jack stared into the steam. “Everything we built, all the good we’ve done and…”

“Maybe that’s ok. Maybe it’s time, Overwatch is done - we can do things a different way. One where you don’t get a statue this time.” The words came out harsher than he would have liked, and Jack’s flinch brought him no joy.

“I _hate_ that fucking thing.”

They finished their coffee in silence, then Gabriel reached over to brush Jack’s cheek. “I’m thankful we’ve made it this far.” 

Jack leaned into the touch. “Yeah. Me too. I just…” Sharp blue eyes caught Gabriel’s dark ones and Jack scowled. “This isn’t why you came here, is it? To make me feel better? That’s not like you, mister _get up and get moving soldier_.”

Gabriel pushed away from the desk, giving Jack’s hand a sqeeze as broke eye contact. “Maybe I just need to spoil you more often.”

Jack’s frown deepened. “Leaving so soon?”

“Tactical.” Gabriel winked, closing the door behind him.

~

In the corridor, Jesse leaned against the wall, still in the Overwatch Blues. “Hey kiddo, welcome back from Merry Olde England.”

“They drink warm beer and put vinegar on fries, it’s a hellhole.” Jesse snorted, tugging at his hat. “Did you tell him?”

“About?” Gabriel shifted on his feet.

“About yer pet, deep cover project, _Jefe_? You said you were gonna read him in.” 

“Not yet. He’s got too much to deal with.”

Jesse pushed off from the wall. “You best tell him soon, then, Boss. Fer all our sakes.”

Gabriel watched him leave, the mask burning in the pocket of his jacket like an ember.  He’d tell Jack later.

And Jack would understand.


	4. Day 5/6: Downfall/Questionable Actions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You might be wondering where Day 4 is. I had a personal crisis in the form of my elderly cat passing away. So here we are.

Everything hurt, Gabriel thought as he keyed open the door to his shared quarters with Jack.  The intel was good, he knew it was. but “Reaper” was no closer to getting into Talon’s inner circle than Santa Claus was. 

But someone was sabotaging Overwatch operations, communications, from the inside. That was clear. But his double life, Reaper and Reyes. Running ops that clearly contradicted each other, was starting to take it’s toll and it was never the right time to tell Jack.

Or to interrogate him, a little slithering voice in the back of his head whispered. The leaks were too good, too highly placed. And Jack knew all the same tricks Gabriel did. Every last one.

Except, _Reaper_.

He froze in the doorway. It looked like their quarters had been ransacked, an impossibility in the security of their facility, and his guts went cold. “Athena, where’s Jack?” He asked the air as he knelt down by the open closet, staring at the black case in the back, hidden in the space behind boxes neither one of them had ever bothered to unpack.

The black case that was open, it’s contents spilled out among family photos and a tangle of worn, childhood momentos. He patted down the black leather, looking for the hard slice of bone-coloured ceramic, already knowing it wasn’t there.

“Commander Morrison is on on the roof of Wing B. I believe he is shooting at his statue again.” the AI answered primly.

Gabriel didn’t bother to thank her, breaking into a run for the rooftop accessway.

~~

It smelled like tequila, gauloises and pulse rifle residue and a number of empty cores hissed hot in the chill night air. “Jackie.” He said carefully, gauging the gap between Jack’s hand and the rifle.

The hard light barrier, erected after Jack had attempted to behead the statue one night, flickered in the darkness.

“I think I’m genuinely offended I’m not allowed to mutilate my own fucking statue.” Jack said pleasantly, the tip of his cigarette glowing orange in the gloom.

“Jack. We should probably talk.” Gabriel held up his hands, the pressure of his own sidearm in it’s belt holster small reassurance.

Jack took another drag, and Gabriel took another step forward.

“You know, the Security Council has been up my ass for … what is it, four, five years now? Looking for a murderous mercenary who theoretically has been around in the shadows for much much longer, if you look at the - and I quote- dark web chatter. You know, I asked you to make it a Blackwatch priority. You said he kept slipping through even your intel web.” Jack’s conversational tone took on a brittle edge, and he stubbed the cigarette out on the rooftop as he stood. “I spent eight hours having my ass reamed in a way I’m _super_ not into by Petras because of London. Because of Reaper. Because of you. Because of a whole host of things and I dunno. I just wanted to find something, something in that box of shit we keep, that would make things feel safe and normal and… I gotta say, what kind of FUCKING MORON locks his double crossing murder cosplay box with his GODDAMN BIRTHDAY, GABRIEL.” Jack flung the mask at him, and they both watched it skip across the gravel roof to Gabriel’s feet.

“I…”

“AND I  SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD, GABRIEL XAVIER REYES IF YOU SAY THE WORD TACTICAL I WILL FUCKING SHOOT YOU. **WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME.** ” Jack’s voice broke, ragged, hand spasming on the bottle.

“Someone is compromising Overwatch intel. It doesn’t surprise me, because after all you trust a fucking monkey with security clearance.” Gabriel spat, picking up the mask. “And Reinhardt - and you know I love him, but Reinhardt doesn’t exactly come with a volume control.” He stabbed the mask in Jack’s direction. “I don’t trust anyone here now, I don’t even trust YOU John Robert fucking Morrison!”

“You trusted McCree.” Jack knocked back a swig of tequila, eyes narrowing as if he could see Gabriel’s face turn red, even in the faint lights from the courtyard below.

“I clearly shouldn’t have.”

“One, do you think, for a goddamn SECOND, that I would make myself a target for the Security Council? That I would put my head on the chopping block over and over again to protect your ops if I was trying to sabotage the best, most important thing I’ve ever done with my life? Two, do you know what kind of a position you’ve put all of us in? What were you thinking?”

“I was trying to save the best most important thing either one of us has done. Even if it meant saving it from you.” Gabriel growled. There was a tiny shift in Jack’s body language, assessing if he should go for the gun, knowing full well Gabriel was armed. 

Then they both stopped, listening to the silence. A cold shiver went up Gabriel’s spine, and he saw the motion twinned in Jack. He pulled the sidearm from it’s holster, and Jack kicked the pulse rifle into his own hands, ratcheting the core back into active status. “Something’s wrong.” one of them said and the other thought it.

Gabriel felt the roof shift a moment before the fireball erupted through it, and he thought he heard Jack shout his name.


	5. Day 7: Depth of Relationship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

_Freeze frame:_ two bitter, broken old men - full of anger, and confusion. Full of bitterness and a tiny ember of hope that never quite went out in either. The weapons in their hands are steady but their voices are not, each hoping the other hears that small spark over the howling wind of old hurt.

The Observer doesn’t understand why this node, why this moment, strikes them so much. A keyframe, perhaps, in the animation of the multiverse.

A few strands, a few frames to the left, and this never happens. 

Seventeen year old Gabriel Reyes dies in a late night accident when his shitty car stops abruptly on the 405. In a hot Indiana night, Jack Morrison wakes up in a cold sweat, feeling a hole in his chest where his heart should be. Twenty-two year old Sgt. Jack Morrison bleeds out in a freezing desert night, the sky above him lit by tracer rounds and deafening explosions. Halfway across the world, Commander Gabriel Reyes drops his breakfast tray in the mess, the unbearable grief welling up in a tear he can never explain. Sometimes one of them dies in SEP, or on an omnic-choked battlefield, and the other is forever changed by the loss. 

Sometimes, much farther to the left or the right or up or down, in worlds where they are gods, where they are monsters, where they are things beyond explanation, they find each other and hold on.  These are the stories of legend, or of terror. Those worlds shake beneath them.

Sometimes in worlds where they are just men, they pass by, never understanding the chill in their spines at the brush of the other. They never understand the feeling that lurks just outside their peripheral vision. 

Just a bit to the right, Overwatch never falls. Jack Morrison retires. Gabriel Reyes retires. They watch Jesse McCree and Fareeha Amari and Lena Oxton become the new leaders. Just a bit to the left and both of them are dead, lost in ash and hate born of love gone bad.

But this world, this moment, this keyframe, when one stroke of the pen, one stitch, could twitch a finger on the trigger, could put a bullet in a broken heart, is the Observer’s favourite. 

The possibilities branch out, fractal cracks in reality, and in the next moment: Jack Morrison makes a leap of faith, and Gabriel Reyes hears that minuscule hope in their shared voices. 

The pulse rifle lowers, steaming in the cold. Two shotguns dissolve into a cloud of nanomatter.

“I missed you.” Jack says, and somewhere, a teenaged Jack Morrison is clutching his pillow, wondering why he can’t stop crying. Somewhere, Commander Gabriel Reyes splashes cold water on his face, listening to his heart drum like an automatic weapon. Somewhere a monster born of life and death coils against a thing that should never be and whispers _I love you_ in the airless landscape of the moon.

“I missed you too.” Gabriel’s broken voice echoes back. “We should talk.”


End file.
